


departures

by sorrymom



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, canonish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrymom/pseuds/sorrymom
Summary: momo goes on vacation.
Relationships: Hirai Momo/Im Nayeon, Hirai Momo/Minatozaki Sana
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90
Collections: #GGFLASHFIC





	departures

momo’s parents never bothered doing much to her bedroom. they had slotted a few cardboard boxes beneath the bed, changed out the curtains once, but since she had left for seoul it had remained much the same, a teenage time capsule. 

now she wishes they had done something. there are crayon marks on the beige walls, a barbie dreamhouse with its broken pillar sitting in the corner. 

nayeon is on the bed, bare feet hanging off the edge. there’s a lollipop in her mouth that she found in the glovebox when momo’s dad picked them up from the airport. 

‘how long until dinner?’ 

‘mm, two hours.’ 

afternoon sun is bright against the dusty window. 

‘enough for a nap,’ nayeon decides. traveling always tires her out, even when they don’t cross a timezone. ‘c’mere.’ 

the bed isn’t really big enough for an adult, much less two, but nayeon tosses the chorus of stuffed animals to the floor and wedges herself against the wall and momo lays down carefully, like she’s taking the first few steps into the shallow end of a cold swimming pool. 

+

they take the train to usj. 

momo sits on a bench, a flock of shopping bags around her, waiting for nayeon and her sister to ride the dinosaur coaster. people are screaming happily. there is jurassic park theme music playing from the speakers nestled in the bushes behind her. there are three unread messages from sana. 

_where is my shampooooo_

_let me know you got there safe!_

_i found it >_<_

momo’s fingertips hover over the keyboard. 

she ends up sending a picture she took of nayeon last night, blushing from sake, pink socks peeking out from under the kotatsu, the dogs swarming around her as she balances a fluorescent piece of pineapple between her chopsticks. 

_cuuuute_ , sana sends back immediately. _pudding looks handsome <3_

 _send me a picture of you!_

momo flicks through her camera roll. the last thirty pictures are either of nayeon or the sky. sometimes both. momo holds her phone out, tucks her mask under her chin, and fixes the camera with her best look of suffering. 

_ah so sour_

the roller coaster roars over a loop. 

+

they spend the evening going through momo’s old wardrobe, trying on t-shirts that are too tight around the shoulders, struggling into worn-out dance tights. nayeon cackles when she finds a sequined fedora underneath the bed. 

‘it was for a performance,’ momo says, snatching it away. 

‘mhmm. put it on.’ 

‘no.’ 

‘come on.’ nayeon spins the hat around in her hands. ‘i’m your guest.’ 

there is a lee hyori poster hidden behind the coats in momo’s closet. 

of course nayeon finds it. 

‘you know, that’s how i used to practice kissing.’ 

‘a—’ momo is ready to go back to korea. ‘a lee hyori poster?’ 

‘no, no. some actor my mom liked.’ she shivers with performative disgust. ‘you never did that?’ 

‘no,’ momo says, and it’s true. 

‘hmm.’ nayeon’s eyes brighten, like she’s identified a challenge, a puzzle, something to twist at and pull until it comes loose. ‘did you do that thing where you kiss the mirror?’ 

momo throws the hat at her. 

‘people _do_ that, i swear! or the thing where you kiss your elbow.’ 

‘ _what?_ '

‘like this.’ nayeon brings her arm up, as if she’s about to sneeze, lets her eyelashes flutter, and presses a kiss to the crook of her elbow. ‘see?’ 

momo squeals. ‘what’s the point of that?’ 

‘well, i don’t know about your elbow,’ nayeon drawls, ‘but mine is warm and soft. it feels nice. and everyone has to learn somehow.’ 

‘i guess.’ 

talking about kissing is not exactly safe territory. not now, not with nayeon. not when she looks like this, cheeks brushed with a winter sunburn, standing in one of the rooms that momo always thought she would be alone in. 

‘so you practiced with a real person,’ nayeon deduces. 

‘yeah,’ momo says, small. she is getting that bubbling, romantic thought. like what if she said ‘i wish it was you’? what if she was that stupid? what if it was that easy to lie? 

‘are you a good kisser?’ 

it’s not right. the sun is still out, bleeding against the window behind them. one of the dogs is scratching at the door. momo can hear the tub faucet leaking from the other room. 

‘no.’ 

nayeon laughs and laughs and laughs. 

+

nayeon sleeps in momo’s bed, and momo is left in a sleeping bag her parents rolled out. it smells vaguely of dog and mildew, probably stuffed in a closet for years, and momo can’t sleep. 

her body is tired from the hours of walking. her brain isn’t. 

there are two messages from sana. 

_should i go to disneyland?_

_wrong person TT_

momo’s chest is sore. she sends, _have you ever kissed your elbow?_

_yes_

_to practice?_

sana’s bubble flickers a few times. then, _late at night and thinking about kissing...my romantic momoring_

momo’s fingers slide over the keyboard, then backspace. she hopes the automated clicks don’t wake nayeon, who snores soft and oblivious above her. 

from sana: _does this mean you didn’t kiss unnie yet?_

_u_u_

_): <_ and then, two seconds later, _it might be better this way_

that’s sana. sympathetic and then whiplashing to pragmatic. and right. always right. 

_yeah_ , momo types. _it was stupid anyways_

_it was sweet_ , sana corrects. momo knows she is mostly lying. it was a risky and stupid thought, a needling little splinter that had been stinging in her chest and sharpening to an arrow over the last few months. it was hard not to nurse the fantasy— bring nayeon home. have her sit with momo’s parents, dote on momo’s dogs, see the inside of a bedroom momo had almost forgotten. all the things normal people did. 

sometimes momo tricks herself into thinking they were pretending on purpose. 

and pretending was better than— 

_kinda wanna be home_ sana sends. she doesn’t mean osaka. 

_me too_

===

hawaii is a jet-lagged disaster. momo and sana spend most of the day with the hotel curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, waking up to fiddle with the TV and shower and walking out of the vector of air-conditioning in the hotel lobby to find dark streets still seeping in heat. 

‘it’s the cement,’ sana says. she has blisters on her feet from the matching sandals they picked up at a tourist trap shop, so she carries the shoes in her hands. ‘it soaks up all the energy like a crocodile.’ 

momo glances at the camera she’s holding in front of her. she doesn’t know what to do, what to say, so she holds a peace sign to her cheek and tugs her lips up in a smile. 

‘don’t film if you don’t feel like it,’ sana says, softening the scold with a hand through momo’s hair. 

momo ends the recording. 

+

they’re on the beach at night. hawaii is too busy for them to be here during the day anyways, she tells herself. too many tourists. too many people who might recognize her, pull a phone from their pocket. it’s not the kind of place she could wear a bikini. 

sana dancing in the low tide, singing the song she always sings to herself. it doesn’t have words, but momo knows the melody. she hums along. 

+

‘what if we don’t go back?’

sana is sitting on an open suitcase, trying to cram all the t-shirts and fake leis and broken flip-flops in. their flight is in three hours. they will be in seoul in twelve hours. already she’s dizzy with the math of what time it will be there, where the sun will be. 

‘you could be a cook,’ sana continues, bouncing, ‘and i could—’ 

this is where the fantasy always unravels. 

‘i could work in the restaurant,’ sana tries. ‘i could be one of the dancers.’ 

momo thinks of the hawaiian women with their broad white smiles as tourists applauded. she wonders if they like their work, or if, in the locker rooms, they shed their dresses and light cigarettes and laugh at everyone but themselves. 

but sana doesn’t mean it. she never means it. 

they brush their teeth and sana snatches what’s left of the mini-shampoo bottles in the shower. they’re shockingly ahead of schedule, half an hour to kill before a charter bus is scheduled to take them to the airport. 

momo fiddles with the camera. 

‘do you want to kiss?’ which means that sana wants to kiss. which means that it’s okay for momo to want to kiss her. 

they lay on the bed, momo against the pillows, sana crouched over her. 

‘feels good,’ momo says when they are breathing. to encourage sana. because she isn’t the kind of person who says _don’t stop_ and sana is the kind of person who miraculously knows. 

‘i thought all we were going to do,’ sana whispers, kissing down momo’s neck, so perfectly warm, ‘was kiss.’ one to the center of her chest. ‘and kiss.’ sana brings momo’s hands up, pressing her still-bare lips to the knuckles. ‘until we got sick of it.’ 

‘you terrify me,’ momo says to the ceiling. sana’s eyes are too bright, too deep. 

‘i don’t,’ she pouts. 

‘you don’t know you.’ momo traces circles in the sheets with her fingers. she’s numb, not with the cold but with the repetition— soft against skin, soft against skin, over and over, smoothing her like driftwood. ‘you don’t have to— you don’t _see_ you. you don’t know what it’s like.’ 

later, they will be on the plane. 

they will not be holding hands.

sana will have lipstick on. 

sana will lean against her shoulder when korea is beneath them. 

===

nayeon goes to hawaii for work and momo goes too. 

her sister frowns when momo, over a bowl of poke, admits the coincidence. 

‘it’s funny, isn’t it,’ momo tries. and it is funny. nayeon would laugh. 

‘you deserve better,’ hana says, as she has before. 

‘nayeon-unnie is—’ 

‘i don’t mean it personally.’ hana glances at her phone. ‘she’s a great person. but—’ and here the tone turns accusatory in the way only sisters are allowed— ‘when you love someone you think they’re special. you think they’re different from everyone else, but they’re just normal people.’ 

‘i—’

‘that’s why you always get hurt.’ 

+

despite everything, hana comes to the pool at nayeon’s hotel. she sits on a lounge chair, headphones in. 

a manager is filming as they swim in the shallow end, nayeon squealing in a baseball hat and board shorts. 

the lights of the hotel flicker in the water. momo wishes they were alone. she wishes she could whisper that to nayeon, and that nayeon would understand it, and even if they could never have what they want they could wish for it together. 

+

momo tells sana instead. she doesn’t have to whisper. 

she’s on the balcony, hair still dripping down her back, phone on speaker. hana is taking a shower inside. 

‘hmm,’ sana says into the phone. it is tomorrow in korea, but it’s also still the afternoon. momo feels how big the world is and here she is on an island with a girl who doesn’t love her back. ‘maybe you should just go to her hotel room.’ 

‘i shouldn’t,’ momo whines. ‘i should just— hana said this thing. earlier. i’ve been thinking about it.’ 

‘tell me,’ sana sings. 

momo does. and then, because sana is silent, ‘but don’t you think—’ she bites the inside of her cheek harshly. ‘don’t you think that—’ 

‘loving people does make them special,’ sana asks gently. ‘like magic?’ 

‘yeah.’ 

‘i think so too.’ 

it’s quiet for a while. sana describes what she can see from her window, the setting sun. 

‘whenever we talk about love,’ sana says lightly, in the same tone that she might say the sky looks wide today, that the ocean sounds calm, ‘i’m talking about you.’ 

momo doesn’t know what to say. she knows sana knows she doesn’t know what to say. maybe that is the ultimate comfort— this electric quietness they’re holding together in the palms of their hands, in two different days, in two different worlds. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title is kinda facetious bc i haven't ever done lapslock and i haven't ever done idolverse so....
> 
> thanks for reading!!!!


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